Reunions
by TrenchcoatsAreSexy
Summary: House has returned after the events of S7, but he's suddenly confronted with two people from his past again... Can he diagnose the patient, save the day AND not get arrested?
1. Chapter 1

Reunions

**Author note: I do not own any of the characters from House; they belong to David Shore. **

Chapter One – Case Study

_It was about two o'clock in the morning, and the stragglers who were still hanging around the alleys and were still coherent enough to be paying attention could see a dash of blonde blur rushing out of___**_Sotto 128, one of Princeton's more well-known night clubs. _**

"_Oh, I'm going to be so fucked!" the blonde girl, who was dressed in a black mini-skirt, a tight-fitting black top, and three inch black heels, yelled as she rushed out to her car, her brunette friend following after her, waving her arms in a somewhat dismissive stance. "I promised I'd be home two hours ago – I'm so fucked!" _

"_Oh come on, Candy – you're nineteen years old, why are you so afraid to get home late?" the other girl asked, chuckling. "I mean, come on, what else is there to do on a Friday night in Princeton?" She grinned widely, still trying to keep up with the girl ahead of her. _

"_I am gonna catch hell like you would not believe," Candy replied, shaking the door handle of her black BMW frantically. "Oh come on, open! Open! I'm not even going to have time to change – oh hell." She stared at her car, giving the handle another yank as she began to feel slightly dizzy. In a frantic moment, she began to wonder if someone had perhaps drugged her drink, she'd be WARNED this could happen, but less than the fear of being drugged, her mind was swarming with how much she was going to get yelled at once she got home and inevitably got out. "Karen!" Candy wailed, before her eyes seemed to slip closed off her own accord. The next thing she heard was ambulance sirens, and then it was all another blur. _

"You ran a car into her HOUSE?" Chase's incredulous voice rang out through the walls of the conference room.

"Yes, I did," House replied simply, turning his head towards Foreman and Thirteen. "Would you like me to repeat it so you both can hear it as well, or can we move on to the… hmm… patient who's potentially dying?" Foreman gave a frustrated sigh.

"Candace Aaronson, nineteen years old. Collapsed while out at a nightclub…" he relayed. "So far, she's not really presenting with, well, anything – other than that she collapsed suddenly. Why are we even taking this case?"

"Trying to avoid the new boss," House replied, tapping the whiteboard with his cane. "So I took the first case that had the vague potential of being interesting. Also, so I didn't need to keep answering questions about how or why I drove my car into Cuddy's house." He looked over at Chase and glared. "Could just be overexertion from dancing all night," he looked at Thirteen and smirked. "I know I've had that problem myself – just give her an IV and see if that clears things up."

"Already did," Thirteen replied, reaching up and playing with a lock of her hair and trying to disregard House's seemingly nonchalant and almost happy behavior after ramming his car into his ex's house, causing her to transfer to another hospital, and only narrowly avoiding being thrown in jail. "It doesn't seem to be helping; if anything, she seems to be getting worse. And we haven't been able to get in touch with any next of kin – I keep just getting a voicemail." House shrugged and looked at her.

"All right, so what do we know now?" he asked, picking up a marker and writing on the whiteboard.

"That an IV isn't working?" Chase pointed out unnecessarily.

"Go break into the house and check for toxins," House replied, pointing to Taub and Thirteen. "Chase, go talk to the patient and get a full history. Foreman…" He gave a long pause and then looked away, before looking at Foreman again, "Do my clinic hours."

"I am not doing your clinic hours!" Foreman protested angrily.

"Okay, then, distract the new boss while I go home and pointedly do not do my own clinic hours," House replied. "Whatever floats your boat." He limped back over to the door and then out again, leaving the team staring at each other.

"So, what's up with him?" Foreman asked. Thirteen shrugged.

"Just let him be – obviously the whole Cuddy situation is affecting him more than he'd really like to let on," she told him harshly, then looked over at Taub. "So, where's this address?"

"Looks like she's living at 515 Bank Street," he responded, reading off of the patient's file. "Let's go."


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two: Complications

"So what's with you and Chase, lately?" Taub inquired as Thirteen drove, in silence, towards Candy Aaronson's residence. "You two seem pretty… close." Thirteen turned and looked at him, before scoffing and returning her eyes to the road.

"What's with you and half of Princeton?" she retorted. "You got TWO women pregnant, Taub. We're doctors, I thought we were expected to know about birth control."

"What's up with HOUSE lately?" Taub continued, not noticeably reacting to her comment. "He drove his car into Cuddy's house."

"Well, there's a kind of irony to it," Thirteen mused, "He's House and he ran into HER house… Guess it's a good thing she decided not to press charges. The last thing we need is a bunch of cops swarming around and getting House arrested." She paused and sighed. "I do really miss Cuddy, though. I don't think I've seen head or tails of the new Dean since he got here."

"Well, Dr. Gray probably still isn't fully aware of what he's dealing with, yet," Taub replied. "Or maybe he does and is just trying to postpone the inevitable – oh, here it is." He gestured towards a large white house, surrounded by a brick wall.

"Looks a little out of a college student's price range," Thirteen pointed out, raising an eyebrow.

"Could live with the parents," Taub suggested.

"No, they were listed as next of kin, but their phone numbers were all the way in New Mexico," Thirteen replied. "Whoever owns this house, it's not the parents, presumably."

"Rich boyfriend?"

"Well, if so, she wasn't out with him last night." Thirteen reached out and popped the lock, before getting out of the car and slamming the door. "She was out clubbing, apparently."

"Miss those days?" Taub inquired as he got out the passenger's side, and Thirteen cocked her head to the side, detecting a small hint of a leer.

"No, I wasn't really the club-slut type, Taub – sorry to ruin all of your fantasies," she retorted. "Too busy trying to actually graduate from college…" The bickering ended as they walked through the front gate of the yard, warily looking around for dogs or other potential complications.

"No car in the driveway," Taub pointed out. "The lights are on – but I think we're in the clear."

"We better knock first," Thirteen suggested, "Just in case. Didn't Masters and Chase find a woman living under piles of clothing a while back?" Taub nodded.

"She was a hoarder." Thirteen gave a disappointed sigh.

"Looks like I missed a lot while I was away." She slowly sauntered up the steps and rapped on the door. After they had waited a few moments, she knocked again.

"Go ahead," Taub suggested, fiddling in his pocket for something that would make an easy lock-pick, wondering how this seemed to come so much more easily to some other members of the team.

Taub's head was still down, and Thirteen was still looking at him, when the door opened.

"I trust you're about to let me know why you look like you're about to break into my home," came a frozen voice, deathly calm and betraying just a hint of smoldering rage. Thirteen looked up and found her blue-green eyes staring into ice-blue ones.

"Uh," was all that came out of Thirteen's mouth at first; she was standing uncomfortably close to the man that had emerged; he was in his fifties, with white-blonde hair and an unreadable expression on his face, lips pursed into a scowl. She couldn't finish the sentence, as the chill from the man in front of her became palatable and all of her instincts seemed to yell only for her to turn and run – but that command wasn't making its way through her nervous system, either. In a starring contest, this man would take first place without any difficulty; of that Thirteen was absolutely sure.

Taub, thankfully, broke the silence, after what had seemed like an eternity.

"Sir, we came here to try and find any information we might be able to get about Candace Aaronson," he said coolly, seemingly not put nearly as on-guard as Thirteen had been. Perhaps it was his safer distance of several paces away; down one step and that much closer to a necessary escape.

"Candy?" the man's face changed, but his expression was still impossible to comprehend. "What's happened to her?"

"She's in the hospital," Thirteen replied, taking a step back and breaking the man's gaze, blinking as she did and feeling as if her retinas had been burned with a laser pointer. "Do you know her?"

"I do," the man's voice was as cool as ever. "She is my niece."

"And what's your name, sir?" Taub prompted, beginning to get frustrated with the strange behavior. He didn't seem particularly upset that his niece was sick, nor particularly dismissive, either. _Wait until House gets a load of this guy. _

To Taub's surprise, the man held up a badge, and he exchanged looks with Thirteen.

"Detective Michael Tritter, Princeton PD," the man hissed, "And you're going to take me to her, now." A little lower, he added, "This had better not be where I suspect it is."


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three: Hello Again, Dr. House

"_I know you changed those blood results, Dexter," Quinn whispered as Dexter broke the kiss to get air, staring at the detective with clear want in his eyes. "And I appreciate it. But you didn't do it for my sister, did you? You did it so you could have me all… to yourself."_

House reached down and tossed another piece of Pirate's Booty into the air, catching it on his tongue expertly, as he looked at his iBook and grinned mischievously. He knew that strategically planting this on Wilson's laptop would, or printing it out and putting it on his friend's desk, could successfully disrupt the oncologist's plans for a date that night. Unless, House thought with a frown, Wilson's date was into this sort of thing. It could easily backfire.

The diagnostician peeked out his door, seeing if he could catch a glimpse at the new girl in Billing – the one Wilson was supposed to be going out with. He didn't see her; but luckily, nor did he see his new boss, who may have been trying to avoid him just the same. Which was, frankly, all just as well as far as House was concerned.

He missed Cuddy with a dull, painful ache, but not the same way that he had before the crash – despite the amount of flack he'd received for it since, not to mention nearly getting thrown in jail, the crash had been cathartic. Just what he needed to let go of the false hope that had been plaguing him recently.

False hope about Cuddy, false hope about his leg – just too much false hope.

It hurt too much to cling to it, to wish for it – and then to see it reflected just how utterly without chance it really was. People like him didn't get people like Cuddy; people like him didn't get happy endings.

That was just how it was.

And now he was, potentially, back to his old tricks, harassing Wilson, playing pranks, avoiding clinic duty, but it had a certain level of comfort to it. Maybe when he had tried to change – tried desperately to change – he'd bent himself back too far, snapped too hard in response when he recoiled in the face of losing the love of his life in the blink of an eye, after all of her promises to stand by him whether he was screwed up or not.

And now there was the case to think about. Why had he taken it, after all? Just as a distraction? No, it wasn't quite that. There had been something about the patient that, when he'd seen her brought in, he couldn't get over. Some kind of odd sense of déjà vu, as if he had seen her somewhere before. He hoped that she hadn't been one of his former hookers, because that would likely be a conflict of interest.

A gentle rap on his door interrupted his thoughts, and he stood up, slowly making his way to the door, before turning his head around the corner and being met with a sight he didn't quite understand at first.

A blonde girl was standing there; tall and slim, in her early twenties, a soft smile in her pale blue eyes. She was dressed in a blue-gray blouse and a pair of dress slacks, the outfit finished with a nice set of heels.

Neither spoke for a moment.

"Dr. House?" the girl inquired, her nervous lips slowly beginning to turn into an equally nervous smile. "Hi… I thought I would stop by and say 'hey'. I don't know if you remember me, but we met… a couple of years ago." House's mind was reeling; the girl did seem unshakably familiar but he couldn't quite place her, and was about to state that fact when the girl continued her statement with a phrase that left no mistake, and no room for mistaking her. "I'm Eve Pickwick – we, well, we were trapped in a room together, once."


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four: Complete History

"So, Candy," Chase asked, reaching up to change the patient's IV bag as he gave her a smile. "Can you tell me a little bit about how you came to be here? We haven't been able to get in touch with any of your folks. Your parents' numbers were with you when you came in, but they're… long distance. And no one's picking up at your house number. Is there anyone we can contact for you?"

"Oh," Candy said, shaking her head, a bit surprised at waking up in a hospital. "My uncle's at the house. He's really busy, though."

"Well, is there any way we might be able to get in contact with him?" Chase inquired. "I think it'd be a good idea to have someone here with you. Also, we need to know if you have a family history of certain conditions… He could know better than you do. Now, is he your uncle by blood or marriage?"

"Blood," Candy replied, "My mother is his younger sister… I moved out here when I decided to go to Princeton. As far as I know, nothing weird runs in our family." She groaned and looked up at Chase. "He's going to kill me. I was out clubbing again after I told him I was studying over a friend's house." She gave Chase a flirtatious smile as she added, "But I just can't keep away from those cute boys." The blonde Australian stared back, not sure what to say to what appeared to be, in the tone of voice she'd given, a clear come-on.

Thankfully, he was saved from a response, because Thirteen had opened the glass and walked up to him.

"We've found the patient's uncle," she told him, then gestured that Chase should meet her outside the room. Chase nodded.

"I'll be right back," he told Candy, then followed Thirteen out through the glass. As he did, he immediately caught a glance of a man he had both thought and hoped he would never see again in his life. His first instinct was to turn around and hide, but he knew that was monumentally unprofessional, and he took another slow step forward, ignoring the man who he was deeply hoping simply looked exactly like the man he'd talked to five years ago. "That's the uncle?" he managed to say to Thirteen, who gave him a confused look.

"No, that's her banker," she retorted, "You look as if you've seen a ghost."

"I may have," Chase admitted, "What's his name?"

"Michael Tritter?" Thirteen replied, a note of incredulity in her voice that Chase seemed this nervous.

Okay, now Chase was really considering turning and walking away.

"I… Well," Chase began, swallowing hard. "I don't know if we can stay on this case." He raised his eyes and now Tritter was taking steps towards him; he would need to stop saying what he was to Thirteen. It would be House's call, admittedly, but would House really want to deal with Tritter of all people again?

Then again, it was House.

"Hello," Tritter's voice coolly greeted Chase, and his escape route seemed to flounder helplessly before his eyes.

"Hello, Mr. Tritter," Chase replied, trying to keep a civil tone, maybe even one that didn't betray that he had ever met with this man before in his life.

"How is my niece, Dr. Chase?" Tritter's words were as calm and deliberate as they always had been. Thirteen exchanged looks with Chase for a long moment.

"We're trying to figure out why she collapsed," Chase explained, not daring to meet Tritter's eyes and so keeping them on the man's collar. "But she seems to be doing better, so far."

"Who is her attending physician?" No response to Chase's words, simply another question.

"Well, you see," Chase began, his jaw sagging slightly in his nervousness. "At the moment, her attending physician is Dr. House. Which… could be a problem."

"Yes, it could," Tritter replied evenly. Chase gaped at him.

"Let me go find him, and I'll see what we can do," he told the detective simply, then turned and looked at Thirteen. "In the meantime, Dr. Hadley and Dr. Taub, why don't you get a full family history from Mr. Tritter?" Before waiting to hear Thirteen's response, he turned and walked swiftly away. Taub let out a little nervous cough to try and clear the obvious tension.

"Well," Thirteen said, looking up and meeting Tritter's eyes awkwardly. "Why don't you take a seat and we can go about doing that?"

He did, in a fluid motion where Thirteen didn't even entirely see him bend, just sit. For the stocky man he was, he moved fast, but Thirteen figured that must have just been part of the territory that came with being a detective.

"Okay, Mr. Tritter," Thirteen began a moment later, looking over at Taub and both wondering the same thing – how did Chase know this guy? Or how did House know this guy? What had they missed? "So, how long has your niece been living with you?"

Tritter crossed one leg over the other and then paused a moment before answering.

"Just about a year now. She's a sophomore at Princeton," he replied.

"Are Candace's parents living?" Taub inquired. Tritter nodded.

"Yeah, they're both alive and well and in Albuquerque, New Mexico," the detective told them. Thirteen nodded as well, writing down the information. Candace's last name was Aaronson, so…

"And you're the brother of Candace's… mother?" Tritter nodded again.

"Yeah. Elise Tritter Aaronson is her name. "

"Any other siblings?" There was a long pause.

"There was," Tritter replied quietly. "Elise is the oldest – I'm the youngest… Fawn was in the middle."

"She passed away?" Taub inquired, realizing after the blunt question had come out of his mouth that his tact was being a bit lacking. Thirteen shot him a glare.

"What happened?" she asked, her voice kinder and gentler than her colleague's. She finally met Tritter's eyes and got the feeling that maybe, somehow, something lay beneath that cold exterior. Or maybe that was a longshot. But she'd been thrown into this, for however long House stayed on the case – and would she even know why he might have to be off of it? She had the make the most of it. "It could be medically relevant," she prompted after a moment.

"It's not," Tritter said simply. After a short pause, he continued, "She didn't die of anything medical."

"Oh?" Thirteen's voice was barely above a whisper.

"She was shot… in a confrontation with the police."


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Five: New Hire

"What have you been up to, Eve?" House inquired, a sense of curiosity overtaking him as he looked at the girl before him. She certainly seemed much more put together and confident than the last time he'd seen her, which had been, of course, at a particularly vulnerable point in her life. When had that been? It must have been… five years ago, at least. The girl smiled.

"You recognize me now," she told him, a bit of a teasing tone coming into her voice. "Well, I just came in for an interview to work in the hospital, actually. To manage the gift shop."

"Is that what a degree in Comparative Religion gets you?" House asked, raising an eyebrow. Instead of getting upset, Eve chuckled.

"Yeah, I guess – other than being a Comparative Religion professor. Which I don't think I want to do, at least not right away!" Her lips turned into a broad smile. "I'm really happy to see that you're still here… You really made a difference for me the last time." House gave a small smile in return.

"I'm really glad to hear that," he said quietly. "I don't usually get things like…"

His words were cut off as his door opened and Wilson stuck his head in.

"Okay, House, you really need to tell me why T… Oh, hello." Wilson looked at Eve and nodded apologetically. "May I talk to you a moment, House? An old friend of yours is in the hospital and," his voice began to twinge with a note of threat, "_I really need to know why exactly he is here and what you did to bring him here." _House stared at Wilson, incredibly confused.

"Who?" he blurted out.

Chase appeared next to Wilson in that moment.

"House. Problem," Chase interrupted, then looked at Eve. "…Sorry. Didn't know you were busy. But, uh… Well, you better come see for yourself." Wilson and Chase exchanged looks.

"I'm so sorry to hear that," Thirteen was telling Tritter when House, Wilson, and Eve (who House had insisted on bringing along for the ride) arrived. "That must be awful."

"Hello!" Tritter was cut off by House's word before he could reply to the sympathy. He looked up, locking blue eyes to blue eyes, a clear intensity in them and one with an obvious sense of no love lost for the diagnostician. Thirteen's eyes darted back and forth between the two, and she furrowed her brow in confusion.

"Dr. House," Tritter's words were delivered in a toneless, clear voice, chilling in its matter-of-fact quality. He paused a moment, and then added, "How is Candy doing?" House proceeded to look over at Chase who had, of course, seen her last.

"She's doing well," the Australian said awkwardly, "But we're still trying to figure out what exactly is wrong."

"I see," was Tritter's response. He turned to look at House. "Are you staying on the case?" House narrowed his eyes at Tritter.

"Do you WANT me on the case?" he replied, a bit of irritation creeping into his voice. After a moment, Tritter nodded, then crossed one arm over the other. Defeat?

"I was just getting a medical history," Thirteen piped up. House nodded.

"Okay – well, get back to that. I'm going to go see what's taking Foreman so long. Chase?" The blonde nodded. "Give the patient an MRI. See if we find anything there."

A moment later, House, Wilson and Eve had vanished into the elevator, with Tritter staring after them in a somewhat confused, somewhat irritated glance. The detective turned to Thirteen and Taub.

"Why?" he said simply.

"What do you mean, why?" Taub retorted. He had little patience for men like Tritter; they seemed to want the whole world to bow to them and Taub had little patience for wanting to bow. He had a pride about him, possibly one that came from so many years as a plastic surgeon. Taub had held power, not over life or death as he did now, but over beauty and self-esteem, and that may have been a far greater power. He also had a magnetic ability to sense insecurity, and Tritter was setting off his radar with a series of very loud and very annoying beeps.

"Why do you work for House?" the detective asked. He raised one finger to his forehead and rubbed it gently, coming away with a few beads of sweat.

"Well," Thirteen cut in, trying to forestall a confrontation between Taub and Tritter, "Four years ago, Dr. House needed a whole new team. He had a huge series of interviews, with something like… twenty-eight candidates? He ended up choosing three, and we were two of those three." Tritter's eyes narrowed.

"Who was the third?" he inquired. Thirteen shot a look at Taub, and her voice got lower. More serious.

"Dr. Kutner was the third," she replied softly.

"I see Dr. Chase is back," Tritter continued, "So, Cameron left? And Foreman? And then Kutner? Why did you stay?"

"Kutner didn't leave," Taub cut in angrily. Tritter's head whipped around and he looked at the doctor, a little shocked.

"Oh?" he asked, regaining his calm. His upper hand.

"Dr. Kutner died three years ago," Thirteen mumbled, nearly spat, hating that this man who seemed to know nothing about them or their boss was here, asking questions and drudging up what had happened to Kutner… Their colleague. Their friend.

Surprisingly, Tritter softened slightly. Thirteen hadn't been entirely sure that such a face could soften – it seemed molded into a look of slight distaste and annoyance – but it did.

"How did he die?" The question was strangely gentle, and Thirteen suspected that it came from mere curiosity rather than any ulterior motive, but she couldn't be entirely sure.

"He killed himself. Shot himself in the head." Taub blurted.

"I found him," Thirteen added, barely above a whisper, staring at the floor.

"Don't know it's particularly any of your business. Don't know what your problem is with my boss," Taub continued, not seeming to acknowledge Thirteen's words but simply ranting at Tritter. "Foreman's still here. He came back. Cameron left, took a job somewhere else. Now if we're all caught up, a medical history would be really, really nice to get."

"So, you still want to work for House, even though he drove one of his team to suicide?"

Thirteen let out a shrill laugh as she met Tritter's eyes.

"You've got to be kidding me," she declared. "Kutner didn't commit suicide because of House. No one knows why he did it. He just did." Thirteen glared over at the detective. "Taub shouldn't have said anything. It really is none of your business. Kutner was our friend and… House was as broken up as anybody when it happened."

"I didn't know that Dr. House could get 'broken up'," Tritter said simply.

"You obviously don't know him very well at all, then."


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter Six: Reluctance

"Foreman! What are you doing?" House's cane jutted out in front of Foreman's chest, and the neurologist held up a hand in self-defense, grabbing it. House pulled it free and then looked at Foreman again.

"Running tests," Foreman replied, giving House an annoyed look for breaking his concentration. He was hunched over a series of slides, examining them one by one under a microscope.

"And what have you found?" House inquired, taking a step towards a metal stool that was off to Foreman's left. "Any vital news?"

"Well, there seems to be liver damage," Foreman replied, "Did Chase get her history? What other symptoms has she been presenting?"

"One interesting symptom," House replied, taking a seat on the stool and then proceeding to push it so that he glided across the room. "She's Tritter's niece." Foreman's chocolate-brown eyes went wide, and he shook his head.

"Please tell me you're joking," he said simply. "Tritter?"

"Yep," House replied, "Not joking. Wish I was. He's sitting off in the lobby chatting with Thirteen and Taub."

"Lucky them," Foreman said bluntly. "Keep me in here, I beg of you."

"Don't worry, I know how your sort doesn't trust the police," House responded glibly, standing up and making his way towards the door. "I won't let anyone know you're in here."

"Thanks, _please_ make it a race thing," Foreman retorted, "Because there's no other earthly reason why I wouldn't want the delight in Tritter's presence. Like maybe the fact that he tried to get us all to help send you to jail."

"Which makes this all the more interesting," House replied. Foreman stared incredulously at his boss, his lips turned up in a "you have got to be kidding me" look.

"You're insane, House. I think you rattled your brain the wrong way when you crashed your car," he said simply. "But I will say I told you so if this blows up in your face. You're still on Vicodin – and probably not all legally, and I'm sure Tritter has still got a grudge, and…"

"A grudge I am sure he can put aside long enough to save his niece's life," House replied evenly. He opened the door. "Let me know what you find."

Foreman waited until the clicking of House's cane was in the distance to begin shaking his head, a feeling of dread gripping every part of him.

"So, what is this going to do?" Candy asked, laying back and staring up at the MRI room's bleach-white ceiling. "Is it going to hurt?"

"No," Chase replied, "But it will be very loud and you have to lie very still." He paused. "Your uncle is here for you… as soon as you're done he can see you, if you want, that is." Candy groaned and rolled her eyes at the ceiling, and Chase by extension.

"I'm so dead," she groaned. "He's such a hardass." Chase couldn't restrain a smirk. He couldn't help but recall his own run-in with Tritter five years before, and "hardass" had just been one of the many words the Australian had thought of to describe him. He suppressed a shudder as he remembered how Tritter had almost groomed him to try and get him to give up negative information about House, and how he had tried to make it look as if Chase was collaborating with him regardless. He also couldn't help but hold it against Tritter that he'd gotten socked in the face by a detoxing House.

"Not a big fan of you going out clubbing?" Chase asked sympathetically. Candy giggled and shook her head.

"Not at all. He doesn't have any kids and he doesn't get it. He tries to act like he's a detective ALL the time." She groaned and shook her head again. "But at least I don't have to live on CAMPUS. That would be even a hundred times more lame. At least when he's out on the late shift I can sneak out, then… Except this time I got caught." Her voice lost a lot of its lightness as she asked, "Are you going to be able to figure out what's wrong with me, Dr. Chase?"

"We will all find out what's going on," Chase replied, smiling down at her. "Me, Dr. Hadley, Dr. House, Dr. Foreman, and Dr. Taub."

"Dr. Chase?"

"Yes, Candy?"

"Why aren't all the other doctors cute like you?"

Chase turned away with a blush as he said firmly, "Sit back and stay still."

"So, what's with that blonde-haired guy?" Eve asked, once they were out of earshot. "Unless it's doctor-patient privilege," she added a moment later, with a polite but slightly playful smile.

"Oh, he and I go way back. We're old school chums," House replied sarcastically. Eve rolled her eyes.

"So apparently I shouldn't have asked," she replied, looking over at Wilson.

"Eve here has applied to manage the hotel gift shop," House said to the oncologist. Wilson nodded.

"Then you had better get used to this, from House, if you plan on encountering him on a regular basis," he told Eve. "You haven't even seen the half of it." Eve grinned.

"Oh, I haven't?" she asked, "You seem pretty similar to the Dr. House I remember…"

"With just as much snark," Wilson added. "Don't encourage him."

"I'll try not to!" Eve replied with a grin. "Are you going to tell me what's with the blonde guy?" she pestered, leaning forward as the elevator door opened and House stepped out first. When House didn't answer, Wilson sighed and looked at Eve.

"House was rude to him in the clinic, and he launched a whole investigation – he's a cop – to try and get House in trouble," he explained, "_Why House is having anything to do with him_," Wilson said with emphasis, looking at the diagnostician. "Is a mystery. Then again, House usually is."

House turned in Eve's direction and placed his hand to the side of his mouth, whispering to the blonde conspiratorially, "And Wilson was in a porn movie." Wilson blanched.

"Were you really…?"


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter Seven: Power

"When can I see Candy?" Tritter asked, beginning to grow a bit more visibly nervous under Thirteen's gaze. Taub had walked off to the bathroom, leaving Thirteen in the unenviable position of being alone with the detective.

"Dr. Chase is giving her an MRI right now," Thirteen replied evenly. "But when she's out, you can see her if she wants." She paused, then hesitated, before asking, "So… what IS your problem with Dr. House? If you don't mind my asking." Tritter gave Thirteen a wry smile.

"We had a run-in about five years ago. Before you started working here, I suppose. Dr. House was rude to me, and things eventually got out of control," the detective said, and then sighed. "I'm not really proud of the way that I handled things back then. But I do feel that he could be more polite to the people who come into his hospital." Thirteen laughed.

"Well, House and polite are certainly not two things that really go together… at all… but, when it comes down to it, he really does have other people's best interests at heart," she said, smiling. Her smile faded as she thought of the debt that House had agreed to owe her, that he'd agreed to kill her if need be. A man who didn't care at all would never have agreed to such a high price, and someone who cared too much, like Cameron, perhaps, couldn't have agreed to it because they'd be way too emotionally invested to actually be able to follow through.

"Are you sure of that?" Tritter asked. "When I… knew him… It seemed as if he was hurting a lot of people… Dr. Wilson, for instance." Thirteen's look was unreadable, and she simply shrugged.

"Dr. Wilson would forgive him anything," she said quietly. "That's just the way he is… And Dr. Wilson's had a lot of stuff happen to him these last few years, so if you do decide to rev up this old grudge against House again, do not involve him… Please."

"Like what?" Tritter asked. Thirteen glared at him.

"How about this?" she asked brusquely, "If you answer one of my questions, I'll answer one of yours." Thirteen could remember House talking about using this method on an uncooperative patient, and she figured she could give it another go. Her patience with Tritter's interrogation of her as to House's personal business was beginning to give out, and her protectiveness of her boss – and, much as she'd like to deny it, her friend – was beginning to harden into defiance.

"That's a fair deal. Until I can see Candy," Tritter replied after a moment. Despite his assent, his body language indicated that he was not fond of the deal – not fond of the idea of being put on the spot. He gave Thirteen the sense of a man who was much more comfortable on the other side of the interrogation table, and more broadly, on the "right" side.

"Okay. So, was Candy exhibiting any strange symptoms in the days leading up to her collapse?" Thirteen asked. She moved her head slightly, meeting Tritter's eyes easily for the first time.

"I don't know," he admitted, "I wasn't home very much, I was busy working on a case…" He paused and seemed to consider the question, "She kept saying that her stomach hurt." Thirteen wrote it down as Tritter smiled – a strange sight, and seemingly not quite natural, as if the muscles in his lips didn't quite know what to do – and added, "My turn, now."

"Okay, shoot," Thirteen mumbled dryly, thinking to herself that maybe this plan wasn't as good as she thought it was.

"Why do you put up with House's crap?" Tritter asked, reaching up and scratching his cheek as he spoke.

"I wanted to work with the best," Thirteen replied, placing her hand on her chair absentmindedly. "You're willing to put up with a lot to learn that much… and House isn't so bad. Everything he does, well, most of it – it all has a reason. I don't think I could have gotten this kind of experience anywhere else, with anyone else." She shrugged. "Why do you see things in such black and white? … And that's not my question, by the way." She smiled, and to her surprise, Tritter smiled too, more naturally this time… And if she didn't know better, she would think that the look in his eyes was one of flirtation.

Maybe Thirteen's guess wasn't as far off as she thought it was, because a second later, Tritter looked away, unable to meet her eyes

"I'm a cop. It's what I do," he replied simply. "Everything is either right or wrong, there is no gray. There is no 'but'."

"But there is," Thirteen argued, "There are always exceptions. There's always 'buts'… Nothing is completely certain. How can you even operate that way? What about… what you told me earlier? About your sister?" She knew she was touching sensitive ground but couldn't stop herself from continuing – who WAS this man and what exactly was his deal? "You said she got shot by the police – you're IN the police. How is that black and white?" Tritter glowered, but shrugged.

"First off, that's at least three questions you owe me, now." Before Thirteen could protest, he continued, staring up at the ceiling and not seeming to connect any real emotion to the words as he began. "Fawn was a good girl for a long time. Then… not so much. She met a guy. He was a drug dealer. Ran off with him when she was eighteen or nineteen. He beat her up. She came back to stay with us – I was… in my early twenties when she came back, she must have been twenty three or twenty four. I was on break from Rutgers. She let him in, in the middle of the night, and let him rob us blind. She ran off again. Ended up getting shot when they held up a convenience store a month or two later in Connecticut, some worker tripped the alarm and they tried to shoot it out with the cops. He survived; got sentenced to twenty years, she got shot in the head and died." He finally met Thirteen's eyes. "It is black and white – there is no gray. There's only right and wrong and power, and if you have the power then you can make people do right."

"Sounds kind of like that quote from Voldemort in _Harry Potter_," Thirteen mused, "…There is no good or evil: only _power and those too weak to seek it_." Tritter smiled sadly.

"The problem is," the detective replied, "Those who seek power are the best and the worst of the human race."

"Which one are you?" Thirteen retorted.

"That's not for me to decide."


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter Eight: Pinballs

"Well, your MRI looked normal," Chase told Candy as she sat up in her hospital bed, "But that means we are one step closer to figuring out what's wrong with you." He smiled at her, and she smiled back, tilting her head to the side and licking her lips.

"And I get to spend more time with you," she whispered seductively. Chase swallowed. "Have you ever slept with a patient?" Chase shook his head. _I killed one, though. _"Maybe I ought to go get your uncle – I'm sure he'd like to see you." He turned and quickly made his way out of the room to look for Tritter – how in the hell was it ever the case that Tritter was the better alternative?

To his surprise, he found Thirteen and Tritter chatting – at least it looked like chatting – in two chairs in the waiting room. Not exactly the way he usually seemed to find Tritter, considering the detective was usually interrogating someone, creeping them out, or a combination of the two. But Thirteen and Tritter seemed almost… friendly. It was starting to unnerve him.

But what did he care? It wasn't as if he had any kind of claim on Thirteen. The simple fact that he was still thinking of her as "Thirteen" in his mind, while Foreman had called her "Remy", showed that much. But he couldn't help thinking about that lunch they'd shared not so long ago, when they'd discovered they had something in common, dark secrets…

Did he have feelings for her? Maybe… But after everything with Cameron, it just wasn't the right time. And it wasn't as if she was sitting there considering any kind of, well, anything with Tritter. She was just getting information out of him, and doing it well. Maybe a little too well.

He could see Thirteen shake slightly, and he realized she was laughing, yes, _laughing_, at something Tritter had said.

"I'm still surprised that you understood the Harry Potter reference," Thirteen said in reply.

"Oh, I watch a lot of movies. Slow nights at the station - too much paperwork and not enough action." Tritter chuckled. _Chuckled. He was chuckling._ Chase was about to double over in disgust. Why was he watching this? He had to break this scene of… he didn't even know what exactly it was.

"Thirteen!" he exclaimed, far more loudly than expected. Tritter gave Chase a weird look. Thirteen blushed – she was _blushing _at Tritter? What the hell was this? "Uh, Detective Tritter can see his niece now."

"Thirteen?" Tritter asked, looking at her, then looking back at Chase, before standing and taking a step towards the blonde.

"It's a nickname," Thirteen replied with a shrug. "It's a long story."

Chase glared at her, and she looked back at him, a mix of surprised and hurt, as if she didn't realize why he was so annoyed.

"Let's go," he said curtly, and the three walked back into Candy's room without another word.

As soon as Tritter saw his niece, his previously blank expression melted into a gaze of relief.

"Candy!" he exclaimed.

"Uncle Mike," Candy grumbled. "How are you?" Tritter shook his head, annoyed.

"How are _you_?"

"I'm fine," she replied. "The doctors are nice." She looked at Chase and winked. "I want to go home, though."

"You're going to go home very soon," Tritter said, "Everything's going to be okay," and Thirteen was surprised to hear him speaking with a caring voice, a gentle tone. She'd have never guessed that he had it in him. She looked at Chase, and he seemed as surprised as she was.

"Nineteen year old collapses suddenly, no abnormal MRI," House began, curling his hand around the handle of the foosball table and giving it a jerk.

"Maybe she's just dehydrated," Eve replied with a swift motion, moving her own foosball figures to knock one of the plastic balls across the table.

"Nah, we passed that idea hours ago," House responded.

"Well what about that guy? Her uncle? Maybe it's no coincidence that he hates you," Eve questioned as she hit the ball with her foosball guys, and scored. She grinned victoriously and looked at House.

"I think Tritter's irrelevant at the moment – I hope," House replied. "Unless he's not, in which case I may have to spend more time with him, which could directly lead to my stabbing my own eyes out." House jerked his wrist and sent the plastic ball across the table, scoring as Eve cursed.

"He's that bad, huh?" she asked, and House didn't answer. He didn't need to.

"Yes, he is," Wilson cut in. He looked at House. "Is playing foosball with Eve really being conducive to your diagnosis?"

"Yes," House replied, and scored again. "What can we rule out?"

"Are you sure Tritter's not related to this?" Eve asked again. "Maybe you're letting your personal bias interfere with the investigation."

"Maybe I ought to have hired you on my team," House mused. "Okay, okay – I'll talk to Thirteen, she talked to Tritter, and maybe there's something we do need to know about her…"

"About him," Eve cut in.

"About him," House amended with a cock of his eyebrow. "That has something to do with why she's sick."

Wilson raised an eyebrow and watched House and Eve play off each other. He wasn't sure that he liked it. Maybe it was just jealousy – he hadn't stepped forward to tell House how he felt, not in seriousness that was, but he knew that he felt it. And seeing him chatting with her, bouncing ideas off her… He didn't want to be replaced by a young and pretty female, especially one that owed House a debt. He could only hope that Eve wouldn't get the job and would be on her way – that this would be a reunion that wouldn't last and a courtship that would be over before it even began.

Or maybe he just didn't want to consider that House could want somebody again so soon after the whole debacle with Cuddy.

Or maybe he didn't want to consider that House could want somebody again, that wasn't him. After all, it'd taken House so long to open up enough to trust Cuddy, to be able to have that relationship, and then it'd all gone horribly wrong. Why would he want to be with someone so quickly, now? Or maybe Wilson was just reading too much into it. Maybe House and Eve were just friendly, maybe they just shared something.

But Wilson felt himself wishing that he could be a part of whatever it was that they did share. It seemed like he wanted to be a part of everything in House's life, recently. Because he was all there was.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter Nine: A Girl Worth Fighting For

Tritter stayed for a half an hour, talking to Candy and holding her hand, before Thirteen and Chase arrived to tell him that they needed him to leave so they could run more tests.

"How do you still not know what's wrong?" he asked Thirteen desperately as he stepped out. "It's been… hours…"

"We should know something soon," Thirteen promised him, giving a comforting smile. "I mean… Dr. House is hard at work."

"Is he really?" Tritter retorted. "I haven't seen him since he walked in and asked whether I wanted him on the case. How do I know he's even thinking over this, or whether he's just trying to get back at me?"

"House doesn't do that," Thirteen replied. "His methods may be a bit different than other doctors, but his bottom line is getting the patient out safe and back to their daily life… He's the best at what he does. I mean, as far as I've seen, he's always on, always thinking about the cases – whenever there's an answer, he'll find it." The detective stared at Thirteen, feeling strangely comforted by her words and, even more surprisingly, by just her presence in general. As much as he didn't want to, he could feel his shoulders begin to relax. He didn't trust Dr. House – not for a second – but he trusted Dr. Hadley, implicitly, somehow.

It was an odd thing to consider, given that he knew so much more about other members of House's team. After all, he'd investigated Chase and Foreman – he knew what made them tick. Taub was barely existent, and then there was Thirteen. She seemed like a complete mystery to Tritter, as if finding out just one piece would cause some huge picture to emerge, one that she in no way wanted out for general consumption.

He wished he could run back to the station and look up her file. If he knew more about her, then his brain would be able to rationalize, make assumptions, and come to conclusions. As it was, his brain was starting to be irrational, emotive – he was starting to wonder, starting to notice more acutely those things that he _could_ observe – her hair, her eyes, that smile… There was something lost and distant in her eyes…

He shook his head, trying to get these thoughts out of his mind. Why was he allowing himself to be distracted by something like this? Dr. Hadley was only a person who was going to help Candy. That was it. Then he could say goodbye to this hospital and to Dr. House, preferably forever.

"Detective Tritter?" He turned, the voice surprising him, to see Thirteen standing there, looking at him. He didn't know how long she had been watching, but she looked… concerned.

"Sorry," Tritter replied quickly, "I was just thinking." He hated the words as soon as they came out of his mouth. Why the hell did he say that? Wasn't he the man who always spoke with a damn purpose?

"Listen… I'm on my lunch break. Would you want to grab something to eat in the cafeteria with me?" Thirteen asked, flashing him a kind smile. "You seem pretty stressed and it's understandable… And I don't have anyone to eat with." Occasionally she now ate with Chase, but not all the time, and she still couldn't quite shake the feeling that when he was looking at her, he was seeing, or hoping he'd see, Cameron. Before that – before she'd left, before her brother and prison – she'd eaten with Foreman. She'd gazed into his eyes and wondered if, maybe if there was some kind of a miracle, some kind of way to keep going on, maybe they could stay together. Get married, have kids even. It seemed so distant now.

So, why not give Tritter a distraction? Keep him off House's back and out of the team's way, for an hour. What could it hurt?

And despite her deepest attempts not to, she still couldn't quite shake the feeling that in a way, she sort of liked Tritter. The feeling of being creeped out, of being sized up and corner and _owned_ that she'd gotten outside of his house had faded.

"Sure," Tritter said simply, and the two made their way to the elevator. They were silent all the way to the cafeteria. Maybe Thirteen was worried that House would catch her – given Chase's reaction, it was obvious that Tritter wasn't telling everything about his "run-in" with House. She didn't want to be seen as a traitor to a man who had vowed to risk everything for her sake.

Then why was she standing here with Tritter at all? When she knew there was more to him than he was letting on?

_Another mystery for the girl who likes to be a mystery,_ she thought wryly. _Maybe I can figure out what makes Tritter tick. And maybe that'll be useful if this all blows up in House's face – which it will, of course. It has to. This has "bad news" written all over it. _

But as much as she kept telling herself that, she wasn't sure. What Tritter had told her about his family… that had seemed like something he'd never told anyone in his life. And he definitely didn't seem like the kind of man who would invent sob stories, just to test people, or get sympathy – he seemed to want to keep people as far out of his head and heart as physically possible.

Why, then, had he allowed Thirteen in?

"The food sucks, I'm warning you," she said playfully as she gestured to an empty table. "Take a seat, I can go grab some food for you? You want anything in particular?" Thirteen wasn't being particularly chivalrous, instead she needed a bit more time to figure out what she was going to do. Every second she could gain…

"I'm not partial," Tritter replied quietly. "Anything will do." Thirteen nodded, and about ten minutes later she'd returned with two trays, both with a rather sad looking turkey sandwich placed on top of it. She pushed one tray over to Tritter and then gave a shrug.

"Best thing they had," she apologized.

"It's fine," he responded, reaching down to pick up his sandwich. He took a bite out of it and then looked at Thirteen. "Does Dr. House have a quota? He needs one attractive female on his team at all times?" She looked back at him and gave another shrug.

"I don't know whether that was a come-on or an insult," she replied measuredly. "But no, I don't think so – Dr. Cameron and I were on at the same time at one point, so he would have been over-quota." She took a bite of her own sandwich.


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter Ten: Sparring Match

When Thirteen returned from lunch break, Tritter came in tow, watching her back and her hair and wondering at it.

_Why am I thinking this shit while Candy lays in a hospital bed,_ he wondered, _am I really that fucking heartless? _

But another part of him reminded him that Candy would be fine, she wasn't really much in danger and maybe Dr. House was just grandstanding so he could solve the case in a big damn flourish and make Tritter look like an idiot.

Suddenly, at that thought, Tritter wanted to thrash House. Unfortunately for House, he took that moment to walk out of the elevator and directly into Tritter's path.

"Hey, Dr. House!" Tritter snarled angrily. House stopped and tapped the cane gently against the floor, before dramatically looking over at Tritter.

"Yes?" he inquired, an already tired and bored look in his eyes.

"Are you planning on telling me what's going on with my niece any time soon?" Tritter asked, a growl making its way into his voice as he glared at the doctor. How could he be so unconcerned? Had Dr. House even examined Candy at all – and there, there was another flourish of anger at the thought of this asshole examining his niece – or had he just sent his underlings to do it? Why didn't Tritter just take Candy and go to another hospital? Maybe, nothing was really wrong with her at all, and Dr. House was just playing games with him to try and get back at him for the investigation.

"I will," House retorted, "Once we actually know what it is."

"Well, I haven't seen you doing much at all!" Tritter fired, "You've been walking around with that blonde girl, and that's about it – are you sure you even know what you're doing?"

"What I'm doing is trying to find out what's wrong with your niece," House replied, gesturing with his cane towards Candy's room. "Soon, we'll know – we're been running tests to rule out whatever it's not, and soon we'll know what it _is_."

"That makes me feel so much better," Tritter said sarcastically. "Why should I even trust you? Why should I believe you wouldn't just kill her to get back at me?"

"Shut up!" Thirteen cut in, looking back and forth between Tritter and House. "Detective Tritter, if you don't trust House, you shouldn't even be here, frankly. There's plenty of other hospitals and plenty of other doctors, but none of them are better than House. And House, let's just get things going so none of us have to break up a fight in the middle of the hospital." She scoffed and began to walk off towards Candy's room.

When she walked inside, she inquired, "Is your uncle always like this?" Candy nodded.

"Yeah, basically…" She replied, then looked up at Thirteen. "Hey… Um, I have something that I don't think is right." Thirteen looked back at her, pursing her lips in concern.

"What is it, Candy?" she inquired, her voice getting softer. Tritter was a puzzle, but Candy was the patient – she cursed silently for letting Tritter and his grudge become the main attraction.

"My fingers… They're turning yellow."

"New symptom – yellow fingers," House declared as he wrote it on the whiteboard. "And fatigue. What does that make?"

"Well, jaundice," Chase pointed out, "But jaundice is just a symptom of liver failure that can be in countless diseases. It doesn't really narrow it down."

"But it means Candy's in bad shape," Foreman pointed out, "We don't really have the luxury of just running tests and seeing what pans out. She needs treatment, and fast – and maybe a liver transplant if we don't move fast enough. We need to see how extensive the damage is."

"You might also want to start talking to her lovely uncle," Taub snarked, "About being a potential donor." Chase sighed.

"I don't know if that's a conversation I'm really looking forward to having," he said quietly. "I mean… To him, it's going to look like Candy was fine when she got here, and she's only gotten worse – which, of course, he'll inevitably blame on House."

"What?" Taub retorted, "House _made_ her liver fail? Probably all that alcohol from going out clubbing every weekend, which is more the uncle's fault than anyone else's."

"Oh, so now it's the guardian's fault if an adult child likes to go out and have a few drinks? And because she likes to go out and have fun, suddenly she's an underage alcoholic?" Thirteen cut in angrily. "It's not Tritter's fault, okay? And let's hold off on asking him to get cut open and give a piece of his liver until we know whether it's necessary. It's not really something to have a 'psych!' conversation about."

"If we could stop bickering," House interrupted, "I think at some point the black one," he gestured over to Foreman, "mentioned running some tests on the patient. Maybe you might want to get on that. Just an idea."

"But we also need to figure out what the underlying cause is," Chase pointed out, "If we see that there's half her liver missing but we have no idea how to stop it, that's kind of rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic, isn't it?"

"Okay then," House replied, and gave his cane a whirl. "Chase, you run some blood tests, and Foreman, you look at the liver. Thirteen, Tritter seems to have an itty bitty crush on you…" Thirteen looked equal parts between blushing and throwing up. "So you keep him out of my way before I trip him with my cane." House's face darkened, remembering his first meeting with the detective, when the man had kicked House's cane out from under him and sent him reeling into a door. The humiliation and utter fury hit him again, like it had just happened. He brushed it off – Tritter wasn't at issue here. He was just a side project. He needed to stop getting distracted by all of these unplanned reunions. He had to do his job and do it quick – time was running out.


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter Eleven: Pick Up the Pieces

"House!" Wilson called as House walked by – on a mission as always. "We need to talk."

"Do we? After all, I left Eve in the lounge and she could get lost… Maybe you should go find her," House retorted, not stopping as he made his way towards his office – he needed to bounce his ball, watch his shows, get all his distractions out so that he could get Tritter the hell out of his head. Because the more Tritter was in his head with his cane-kicking and that self-assured mocking glance that he'd thrown, not to mention that voice – he probably hated the voice most of all – House would be off his game. And no one wanted House off his game. So why was Wilson interrupting him?

"Yes, we do," Wilson replied, reaching out and placing a hand on House's cane. The diagnostician glared; his cane was fairly sacred territory and Wilson usually didn't impose like that. House stopped walking, however, because if he was that willing to impose, it must have been for something important. But, however, couldn't this important talk, whatever it was, wait until he had cured the patient and by extension sent his nemesis off to whatever corner of Princeton he was currently inhabiting?

Looking at Wilson's face, House decided – apparently, not.

"Okay," House continued. "What do we need to talk about?"

"Us," Wilson murmured under his breath, then pleaded, "My office?" House sighed.

"Okay, okay." He allowed the oncologist to lead him into his office, and watched as Wilson shut the door and then began staring at his fingers nervously.

"House, ever since… This whole thing with Cuddy, I've been thinking," Wilson began. He stopped a moment and looked at House, as if deciding how to proceed based upon his gauge of the diagnostician's reaction.

"Okay," House replied, craning his head to look at Wilson and wondering what had made the man so nervous, and beginning to believe that he wouldn't like the answer.

"And I've been thinking… that you should really move back in with me. It was a mistake to kick you out – I'm an asshole. And I'd be honored if you'd move back in with me," Wilson said quietly.

"There's more to it," House said, cutting him off. "You've said I should move back in with you before – but you weren't so nervous about it the last time. The last time you were self-righteous… Right now you look self-effacing." Wilson blushed against his will.

"There is more to it." Wilson said the words barely above a whisper. "I think… I think I have feelings for you."

The words hung in the air, painfully, and he could taste rather than feel each moment that House doesn't answer – for Wilson couldn't tell whether they are seconds or minutes or hours or maybe even decades, or perhaps time had stopped entirely as a favor to him to save him from when House would thrash him painfully or laugh at him or worse, just not say anything and simply walk away.

"You do?" came House's gentle question – gentle? Yes, because he was whispering, and he was stepping towards Wilson, and he had placed his hand on Wilson's shoulder, ran it down Wilson's arm to his right hand, his right hand that had only so recently been released from its cast. Wilson's head tipped downward, and he was surprised into speechlessness at House's actions. This was good, as it gave House a chance to say a few words more. "And you want me to move back in?" Wilson nodded, and House gave a long pause. "Okay," he said finally. "I'll move back in."

Thirteen was making good on her promise – well, it wasn't so much a promise such as a command she was following – to babysit Tritter, and was finding it not that bad a task to end up with.

They'd not uncovered anything new or earth-shattering about either's past, but they were exchanging pleasantries and telling war stories from each of their jobs. Tritter was currently in the midst of relating the time that a colleague of his had been confronted by a drunken man who was convinced that he was George W. Bush and insisted on attempting to get a ride to the White House. Thirteen smirked and countered with the tale of a former hook-up appearing as one of House's patients.

But Thirteen found her thoughts wandering to, yet again, what Tritter had done exactly to earn House's ire. He'd been so very vague about it. And she needed to know, especially as she was getting a creeping sense of… no, best not to think about that. Patients' families were verboten. Especially in this case, especially now. What was Thirteen thinking? It didn't matter what Tritter did to make House mad because after this case was over, Thirteen was never going to see Tritter again. And that was the way that it should be.

Then why was she looking into his eyes and moving a little closer? Still laughing at his jokes and – _what the fuck, this man is old enough to be my dad! _But it seemed as if the phone line which connected her thoughts to her actions had been snipped – maybe a _mouse bit it,_ she thought, an old sing-song Dr. Seuss rhyme ringing in her head, "A mouse has cut the wire – goodbye!" – and now her hand was on Tritter's shoulder and she was nodding but she couldn't quite recall at what because she was looking into his eyes which were oh so very blue. _Sky blue, maybe, or baby blue – why am I thinking this? Shut up, brain, shut up brain… _

And then – oh God – before she knew what was happening or could really actively stop it, make those gears turn in her head to say _stop, this is stupid, this is really, really stupid,_ she had gone from looking in those oh-so-blue eyes to having her lips on his and _oh God, what the fuck am I doing?_

She broke the embrace and turned and walked away, not saying a word, not having anything that she could really say. And the only thought in her head was that she had to know what he had tried to do to House. And she couldn't get it from him.

She had to go see Chase.


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter Twelve: A Turn for the Worse

"What did Tritter do to House?"

Chase turned around with a start, almost knocking over the cart he'd just placed Candy's patient file on for a moment while he'd turned to grab a coffee. He was standing outside an operating room, in the hallway, and he'd been lost in thought before the voice cut in, doing differentials in his head on Candy Aaronson, who seemed to get turned on by Chase's entire being. _The last time a patient was this into me – she was eight,_ he recalled.

He looked at Thirteen – obviously, she was the source of this question, but why exactly? He was feeling dread grow in his stomach at any of the possible reasons that Thirteen could have for asking this question. Maybe Tritter had said something, maybe something about Chase and how Chase nearly folded – no, he didn't, he'd told Tritter to go the hell; no, he hadn't, he'd shared lunch with the man even as his stomach had turned at having to share a room with him. He'd let Tritter _touch_ him – and the mere remembrance of _that_ made Chase flinch involuntarily.

"There was some issue between he and House, and Tritter started coming around all the time," Chase began slowly. "He impounded Wilson's car, and he froze all our accounts…" _Okay, so that's a lie, he never froze mine because he thought I was most likely to roll. _"He offered a deal to House but then… House did something else," Chase actually couldn't remember what; there'd been too much in his mind these five years to remember exactly what had sent Tritter back on House's tail. He didn't like thinking of those days – those days before he and Cameron had gotten together, shortly before their agreement for "just sex" which then slowly developed into more. Those days during Tritter, during that whole debacle, he'd been thinking less about Tritter and more about what Cameron's beautiful chestnut brown hair must smell like. Now he didn't even know where in the world Cameron actually was.

"And then?" Thirteen prompted urgently.

"There was a hearing. I don't know what happened exactly but Cuddy pulled some strings or something, the case was dropped and Tritter looked like an idiot. But it went on for… weeks, it must have been. Tritter tried to play me, Cameron and Foreman against each other. He harassed House, took away his Vicodin and we nearly cut off a patient's arm and leg because House missed something because he was detoxing and all he could think about was Vicodin. I don't really like remembering our run-in with Detective Tritter, and if I had it my way I'd never see his face again. Why are you asking me about him?" Chase's voice slowly rose, until it became accusatory, and Thirteen stared back at him, sure the answer must be written across her face. _Might as well say it._

"I kissed him." The words were barely above a whisper, but Chase heard them. He took a step back, repulsed.

"Goddamnit, Thirteen!" If he was any louder he would be yelling, and the only reason he wasn't was because they were still in the hallway, and he didn't want to make a scene, didn't want anyone else to know that the woman he had feelings for now had – _what the fuck?_ Now, it was Thirteen's turn to step back; small steps, wary, and a little frightened, something that he'd never seen on her face before. "I don't understand you. I don't mean to be blunt but… Come _on_, you of all people! You have a limited time left, why the hell would you want to spend it doing anything at all with someone like Tritter? He's poison."

Thirteen didn't respond, she simply turned and walked away. Chase watched her go, feeling his heart shatter into pieces that he was sure he could never pull out of his other organs, even with the most precise surgical tools.

When Thirteen found him, Tritter was again sitting by Candy's bedside, chatting with her in words Thirteen couldn't quite hear. She felt like she was intruding on a private family moment, one that she wouldn't understand even if she'd been able to hear, even if she'd put on close captioning and even if Tritter and Candy explained all the inside jokes and nuances. Those things that Thirteen could only barely remember from her own childhood, those things before her family had been shattered by Huntingdon's Disease – the same way her family would be shattered if she ever got so full of herself as to decide to have one.

"Hey," she called quietly, and Tritter turned and looked at her, his expression again unreadable, as if she'd been able to translate him but then had decided to toss her dictionary out the window. She turned her face towards the safer target, towards Candy, towards the patient. "How are you feeling?"

"Pretty good," Candy chirped with a small grin. "I hope I'm out of here soon, but is Dr. Chase coming back?"

Thirteen winced at Chase's name, so soon – how had she blown it, why had she bothered to tell him? It was such a mistake… How could she have been so stupid? She'd been so good at keeping everything a mystery before, a mystery from everyone other than House who just liked to solve mysteries… And now she'd let emotion blow her wide open and for a person who'd tried to destroy her boss – no, more than her boss, maybe even her _friend_… It was sleeping with the enemy, or at least kissing the enemy, and she ought to apologize (but to who?) or do something (but what?)…

Maybe it wasn't that big a deal. After all, she hadn't known the whole Tritter story when she'd done it, and after all Tritter wasn't a patient and after all… House was never going to let her forget this. Just when she'd managed to live down the disaster with the wheelchair-bound man and his dog, she'd created a new disaster. Trittergate.

She looked over at him now, trying to decide what it was about him that had made her make such a stupid decision.

Her eyes darted to his right hand, which was pressed against his stomach.

"Hey, what's wrong?" she asked quietly, stepping forward.

"My stomach's been killing me, but I'm sure it's nothing…" Tritter replied.

His eyes dropped closed and his head lulled, rolling back and forth on his neck as he seemed to lose consciousness. Candy screamed.

Thirteen ran for the phone and as she pressed the buttons she couldn't stop thinking, _It was me, it was me, it was me…_


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter Thirteen: The Answer Is…

"So, we have an additional patient," House declared, hitting the whiteboard with his cane for emphasis. He leaned down and picked up the marker, writing "TRITTER" in huge letters under the potential diagnoses for Candy. Under Tritter's name he wrote "stomach pain" and "loss of consciousness".

"So Tritter and Candy are both sick," Foreman chimed in, "Meaning, it's got to be either environmental or infection."

"What if they're not both sick from the same thing?" Taub countered, "It could be two different illnesses."

"Simplest explanation goes against that, though," Foreman disagreed, "They live in the same house, same environment, are around each other – Thirteen and Taub never got to finish checking the house for toxins. It's probably a toxin that just, for some reason, hit Candy first – or it's an infection and Tritter caught it off of her." House's eyes drifted over to Chase, who had his arms crossed and was staring – but seemingly trying not to seem like he was staring – at Thirteen.

"Thirteen. Chase. What's going on?" House barked, ignoring Foreman and Taub's discussion. "You're glaring at her."

"Maybe you ought to check _Thirteen_ for that infection, too," Chase hissed, looking over at her as she looked hurt, then returned the glare.

"Thirteen," House declared, rounding on her, "What happened?"

"I kissed him," Thirteen mumbled, barely above a whisper. "I kissed Tritter." Foreman and Taub looked at each other in horror, and House tilted his head to the side and gave Thirteen a long look.

"Okay," House said finally. "If Thirteen gets sick, test her – in the meantime I think we can safely say she didn't kiss Tritter and give him Huntington's. Now, if we can get back to the patient who may be dying and get off of Thirteen's love life, that'd be great."

"You're fine with this?" Chase asked, astonished. "With _Tritter_?" House shrugged.

"Tritter's a patient now. Meaning Thirteen can't play Seven Minutes in Heaven with him anymore," he replied, then banged the whiteboard with his cane again. "Differential diagnosis! Go!"

"Liver cancer… Both drinkers?" Taub guessed. "It's possible. Candy parties and Tritter has a high stress job…"

"Why did you feel the need to call me out in front of everyone?" Thirteen snapped angrily at Chase.

"Because you did something unthinkable!" he retorted. "Tritter's as close to the enemy as you can get and you kissed him! Do you know what he did?"

"Yeah, now I do! You never bothered to tell me before!" Thirteen yelled back, "And I can't help it – you don't need to…"

"Yes, I do!" Chase fired back, "Candy's been hitting on me this whole time and I never…"

"Hey!" Foreman cut in. "What if that's a symptom?"

"Candy flirting with Chase?" Thirteen asked in surprise.

"Or a cause," Taub chimed in. "Did we run an STD panel?"

"Yeah, but it came back negative," Foreman replied. "Could be a false negative though, right? Maybe we should try and re-run it…"

"An STD," House cut in, looking at the board. "Hepatitis B causes all of these symptoms…" He moved around the board, circling each of the symptoms.

"Then why is Tritter so much worse?" Thirteen asked. "Candy's awake and alert, Tritter was writhing in pain and now he's unconscious." Foreman looked over at each of them in understanding.

"Well…" he began. "Tritter's a cop, right?"

"Yeah," Chase replied. "Where's this going?"

"Let me finish," Foreman snapped. "So, what if Tritter has a weakened immune system? Due to… HIV maybe? He could have gotten an accidental needle stick easily while arresting somebody. And Hepatitis is spread by casual contact… Candy could've easily given it to Tritter recently and then it just went haywire with his system."

_So,_ House thought to himself, _Tritter's original suggestion in the clinic, all those years ago, could have been right. Maybe he did have an STD, just not one that would show up on a crotch swab._ He swallowed back a sense of guilt; maybe he should have run that test. Maybe he shouldn't have been so sure. Maybe he shouldn't have played into Tritter's petty grudge game.

But if this was the answer, and maybe it wasn't, there was no way of knowing if he'd had it that day in the clinic. There was no way of knowing.

Maybe there would have been a way if House had just run that damned test.

"Foreman, Thirteen - run an HIV test and run an STD panel on both of them," House said, his voice sounding worlds away. "Taub, Chase – talk to Tritter, see if he's had an accidental needle stick recently." House stared up at the whiteboard as his fellows shuffled out.

He had to think about what this all meant. Was this is old actions coming back to haunt him, or just an obstacle in the way of another master House diagnosis?

And what about what Wilson had said to him earlier? What did he make of that? In Tritter and Eve, House was seeing himself in two, at his best and his worst, and maybe that's what Wilson saw, too.

_And yet he stays. And wants more, even. Even though my best isn't nearly so good. My best is just a sounding board, a hand to hold reluctantly as a girl who's totally capable gets back on her feet. _

_Wilson wants more, even though my worst means I ran a car through my ex's house._

_Wilson wants more, even though my worst might mean that I killed a man because I ignored his request for a test, because of a petty grudge._

Did he want more from Wilson? He certainly valued him as a friend – his best friend, his only friend, and, hell, Wilson had even forgiven him for what had happened to Amber, and wasn't that the proof of how deep his feelings must run?

_Oh, yes, that's another worst – my worst got my best friend's true love killed, made her die in his arms. I have so much to be proud of._

He didn't know how long he had sat there, unmoving, when Thirteen and Taub entered the room. The voices came out in a chorus, a chorus of death, like in a Greek tragedy. Thirteen's first, her voice choked, pained.

"Candy's tests came back positive for Hepatitis B. Tritter's came back positive for Hepatitis B and…" There was a pause. "For HIV."

"Tritter admitted to having a needle stick three years ago," Taub said, joining the harmony. "He didn't report it…" Taub trailed off, hearing Tritter's voice in his head, what he'd told him, _I nearly lost my job after the whole House debacle, I couldn't risk losing it again. I was sure it was nothing. _Taub didn't say this to House; House would have just called Tritter an idiot. Taub didn't say those words even though Taub agreed.

"Thirteen," House's voice was somehow coming out of his body. _Three years – thank fuck, three years, not when he was in the clinic –_ "Tell Tritter…" He paused. "Tell Tritter that he's probably going to die."


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter Fourteen: Simple Request

Thirteen's mouth was dry. Her palms were sweating. She was staring at the whiteboard in shock, seeing the symptoms seem to run at her, as if they were chasing her. They were getting blurry and the marker was running and House was looking at her now and telling her to just go and she couldn't just go because she couldn't seem to make her legs move, they were starting to hurt…

Then somehow, like a parachuter pushed out of a moving plane, she was walking towards Tritter's room with the charts and paperwork listlessly hanging dead in her hand. She could hear white noise in both her ears, getting into her thoughts and pulling the blinds over, muffling all the sounds.

She was in Tritter's room, staring down at him – the damage that only hours had done was now apparent on his face, and she winced as she took a step forward and tried desperately to will her mouth to move, for words to come out.

This was never easy, but this was harder.

She realized in that split second why someone should never get involved with their patient, never fall in love with their patient – it wasn't all because of objectivity or ethics but because the human heart cannot tell someone they love that they are dying.

_Dying, just like me. _

She opened her mouth and tried to think of what to call him. The others just called him "Tritter", always with a hint of derision and a snort – except for House in those last words, where the name had been said softly, maybe with respect and some resignation. "Detective Tritter" was just too… something, Thirteen didn't know quite what.

She opened her mouth and made the "M" sound, almost calling him "Michael" before chickening out and saying barely above a whisper, "Mr. Tritter?"

Tritter's eyes flew open at Thirteen's voice, and he seemed to immediately sense the danger in her tone – _he is a cop, after all,_ Thirteen thought, _he can see this shit coming a mile away. _

"We ran… some tests, on you and Candy," her voice was faltering, rising and falling like it was riding a roller coaster – one that was about to derail and leave the hapless kiddies suspended in mid-air for hours while the cops had to come and rescue everybody.

"Is Candy going to be okay?" Tritter asked. Thirteen looked at him, trying to hide the wry smile that was trying to force its way on to her lips.

"Candy has Hepatitis B," Thirteen replied quietly. "We can treat her with anti-retrovirals and she'll be okay. And… you have Hepatitis B, too. You must have caught it from casual contact, either here in the hospital or from being in the same house." She swallowed hard and her voice wavered as she continued, "The virus hit you much harder because you have a compromised immune system."

"What do you mean?" Tritter asked, his eyes locked in confusion. She could almost see the wheels turning; he must have been bringing up the question Taub had asked him about the needle stick, must have been connecting, but he feigned ignorance and looked at her. "Like the boy in the bubble or something?"

"You're HIV-positive," Thirteen blurted and looked away. She couldn't see his face, not when she told him this. "We can give you… medications to help treat it, help control it but your immune system is compromised, you will probably keep getting sick from opportunistic infections and I don't think you'll be able to go back to police work." Her eyes went from the floor to the ceiling to the wall and finally back to Tritter, who was looking at her in disbelief and horror.

"Being a cop is all I have," he said quietly. "I can't do anything else. I don't want to do anything else."

Suddenly Thirteen was back standing at the foot of Amber's hospital bed, looking at the woman she'd hated… well, maybe not hated – okay, let's be honest, hated, and seeing her die while Thirteen realized that could be her, and would someone be standing there who hated her, too?

Amber hadn't had any family there except Wilson – who else was even close to her? No parents, siblings, no one, she seemed to have cut all ties in her relentless pursuit of being right.

Was Tritter the same way? Other than Candy, who else was around who even cared about this man?

Well, now, Thirteen did, and she was staring into the face of … something, she wasn't sure what. She'd shattered what could have been a relationship with Chase for a momentary lapse of reason with a man she barely knew and had every reason to hate, but she'd hated Amber and hated herself for hating her. How did she somehow love Tritter instead, if that was what it even was?

"You can find other things," Thirteen whispered. "It's not over." She swallowed, and thought about everything she'd always believed about not sharing any of herself with the patient. It made things about you, not about them; it clouded objectivity; it didn't help, it made things too personal – none of that mattered now, though. "I know how you feel," she said softly, looking into Tritter's eyes. "I have Huntington's disease. I don't know when things will get bad, but they will, and it's scary as all hell. But I have to live with that and make my life mean something while I still have it – and you can, too. It's not a death sentence. You can still do great things, Mr. Tritter, you can, okay?" Her voice was almost pleading now, and she stared at him, sure she would hear him throw it back in her face that yeah, maybe her situation sucks but it's not his, and she shouldn't compare her pain to his, _and who really cares about her personal problems anyway and why are you telling me, does it look like I give a fuck? _

But he didn't say any of those things.

Instead he looked at her and he asked, "You could fiddle with my pain killers, couldn't you? Make the dosage a bit too high?" His voice was quiet, but not wary, intent on agreement like he was interrogating a suspect for a crime where he already knew who the perpetrator was and what the answer was. That was the difference between House and Tritter, after all, Thirteen considered: _Tritter has all the cards in his cases, doesn't he? He doesn't have symptoms, he has suspects. _

"No," Thirteen replied sharply, "I can't." _Not again. Not for you._

"Can't you? This is over – it's over."

"What about Candy?" Thirteen asked, "She's going to walk out of here. Don't you want to walk out of here with her?" Tritter looked at her a long moment and then swallowed, an unreadable expression going over his face.

"You're right," he said quietly. "When can I walk out of here?"

"Soon… A couple days max, maybe even a couple hours," Thirteen replied quickly. "I'll go confer with Dr. House and we'll get you on anti-retrovirals and you'll be good to go." She forced a smile and looked at him again. "Is there anything else you need?"

"No," Tritter replied, "I'm fine." She turned to walk out the door. "Dr. Hadley?"

"Yeah?" Thirteen asked, turning back around.

"Thank you."


	15. Chapter 15

**A/N: You may want to avoid this chapter if you are depressed or easily upset.  
><strong>

**Chapter Fifteen: Broken**

"Thirteen." She was surprised to hear Chase's voice behind her as she walked towards the conference room, and she turned around, trying to keep the glare off her face. All she needed right now was Chase to jump all over her. She didn't even know what she felt; she was exhausted from the conversation with Tritter and she had no idea how to proceed. _Should I tell House what he asked of me?_ But she couldn't imagine the words, nor the betrayal inherent in doing so.

"Yes?" she replied, keeping her tone even and trying with all her might not to cross her arms like a misbehaving child.

"I'm sorry," he said simply, his eyes slowly moving to the ground. "I'm sorry about all that stuff I said about you and Tritter. I was angry and jealous and…" He took a deep breath and looked back up at her. "I would have been angry if you kissed anybody, because… I think I'm in love with you. And it being him of all people just – threw me. But I'm… sorry. I know you care about him and that this isn't easy."

"He wanted me to help him die," Thirteen said in a toneless voice. Chase swallowed.

"That has to be hard," he replied evenly, and reached out to take one of Thirteen's hands in his. "I know I've been a jerk but… if you need to talk, I'm here, okay?" She swallowed, almost mimicking his movements, and gave a quiet, subdued smile.

"It's just so much," she replied and shrugged, "But I don't… I'm not really the talking about my feelings type."

"Are any of us?" Chase asked with a smile. "I mean none of us is really into sharing and caring – otherwise why would we work for House?"

"Cameron," Thirteen pointed out, feeling a bit guilty as Chase's smile fell.

"Well, yeah," he replied, "But she was into sharing and caring when it had to do with somebody else's business, not with her own." Thirteen smiled and sighed.

"I just feel really stupid," she admitted, "I usually don't let my emotions interfere with cases."

"Everyone does, though," Chase pointed out, "People are human; even House has gotten emotionally invested – though whether he'd ever admit it is another question entirely. But it's one of the harder things about this job. You get to know people, care about them and then sometimes you have to tell them that they're going to die." He reached out and gently clutched Thirteen's hand in his own. "It's scary. It doesn't get any easier. And you're doing it as well as you can."

"But one day… it'll be me in that hospital bed," Thirteen whispered, "Just like it was Amber."

"One day, all of us will be… if we even get that far. It's what we do up 'til that point that matters," Chase replied, still keeping his voice low as he slowly met Thirteen's eyes. "And today, you made it just a little bit easier for… him." He couldn't bring himself to say the name.

"It didn't feel like it," Thirteen replied. "I mean… I don't know." She smiled sheepishly at Chase. "Thanks for forgiving me? I… I like you, too." Her smile turned to a grin. "I feel a little bit like a teenager with a crush around you."

"Really?" Chase asked. "Well, that's nice, cause I…"

"Hey, lovebirds," House's voice and the click and clop of a cane cut into their conversation. "I thought you were going to get retrovirals for, you know, our patient."

"Uh, sorry," Thirteen replied quickly and turned towards the pharmacy.

"Should you talk to Tritter?" Chase asked House.

"Should I?" House inquired back at him. Chase glared.

"I mean, I feel like you owe it to him to at least talk to him. You've barely said ten words to him this entire time you've been treating his niece and then him."

"Because what I say is going to make this so much better?" House retorted. "Or do you think I ought to twist the knife a little bit more? After all, as Kelly Clarkson said, some people wait a lifetime for a moment like this." Chase rolled his eyes in as exaggerated a manner as physically possible. "Tritter's not going to get me humiliating myself in front of him, because even if I meant it, it's not going to mean anything in the long run. He'll still have a death sentence and I'll still be the one that gave it to him."

Thirteen opened her mouth to say something in response, but the thought hit her that like it or not, House was right. Besides that, she had basically been appointed liaison to Tritter in order to keep the peace, so… it was just better to go through her until he was discharged. That could take some of the sting out of the blow, and she knew that hearing anything – whether sympathy or mockery – from House right now would just be not only salt in the wound but perhaps sulfuric acid in the wound.

Taub emerged from the hallway at that moment, with a look of intense annoyance plain on his face.

"Just found out you got another girl pregnant?" Chase ribbed. Taub looked suspiciously close to shooting him the middle finger in response, but instead just glared.

"Tritter wants to talk to you, Thirteen." All glances turned her way, except for House's, which was preoccupied with staring down the hall towards Wilson's office. He was again thinking about what Wilson had said to him, considering that the puzzle of Tritter was now at an end and he could pick up the pieces and put them back in a box.

"Okay," Thirteen replied simply, shrugging, frustrated, as she started towards Tritter's room.

She stopped in her tracks when a sound like a firecracker went off.

"Shit! Someone get in here!" she heard a voice yell. "Gunshot wound to the head in…"

Thirteen shook in her spot and she couldn't move forward or back. Everything had gone black behind her eyes, like windows covered in big black construction paper.

It was Tritter's room number.


	16. Chapter 16

**Chapter Sixteen: Aftermath**

House didn't realize that Wilson was standing behind him until he felt the oncologist's hand on his shoulder.

"How are you holding up?" Wilson asked quietly. House turned into the other man's touch, grounded by it, and met Wilson's brown eyes with his blue.

"Better than Tritter is," he replied, but the sarcasm fell flat, his voice deadened and in a state of shock. He wasn't sure why, though – he'd had patients die before, ones he had liked far better than him in fact – but this was… something else. Something he didn't quite have a word for and didn't really want one for. And Wilson seemed to be the only thing keeping the word from tilting completely upside down.

"Maybe we should head home," Wilson suggested, and squeezed a little tighter on House's shoulder to remind him that – if he still wanted it, that was – home was now the same place for both of them.

"I should stay a while. They may need… more information," House replied. "You could go home if you want." The tone in his voice pleaded, _please don't,_ and Wilson heard it loud and clear.

"I'll stay," Wilson said firmly. "It wasn't your fault."

"I should have figured," House said with a swallow. "That he'd have his police revolver with him…"

"That you legally couldn't take away from him," Wilson reminded him. "He had every right to have it, and you didn't know."

The conversation cut out as Thirteen walked up and joined them, her gaze downward to the floor of – where was this again? House looked around and found his answer: the Diagnostics Lounge. They'd come here after the police had questioned them, had tried to figure it all out even though there were no answers, no answers for one of their own even though not a single one said _I liked him_ or even _I knew him_.

That was more tragic than the reason for them coming itself.

"Hey," House and Wilson said to her in unison. A small smile crept over her face and she nodded, not trusting herself to speak. For her, too, there weren't any words.

_If Kutner was here,_ she thought, _he'd be the one to say that was just what happens and it's okay, what's on TV tonight? _

But Kutner, too, not nearly so well-adjusted as he'd played himself off to be, was also in a hole in the ground, like Tritter would be soon, too.

Thirteen couldn't. She just simply couldn't.

Amber and Kutner and now Tritter – a man she'd been speaking to moments before, a man she'd exchanged something with, even if she didn't know what – and soon Thirteen herself… they were all off to dust, to… somewhere else, maybe. To something else. And it was terrifying.

Chase seemed to appear from thin air next to Thirteen, and she couldn't quite see him, like he was a movie on Pay Per View she hadn't paid for or a radio station that was losing reception.

"Remy," Chase whispered, and she felt her hand grasping his.

* * *

><p>Somewhere on the other side of the lounge, near the ever-present foosball table, Foreman and Taub were standing, too; not speaking. Taub was off in thought about his own latest challenges, he'd managed to push Tritter to the side in a matter of moments because it just wasn't worth it, too much time to spend brooding over a dead man who'd done it to himself when soon he would have two live – hopefully – beautiful beings to take care of. That was much scarier than a gunshot wound to the head. You could cry over a dead person or just stare at them but a live living being who trusts you will all their heart… there was so much more to go wrong there. And Taub wasn't sure he was ready.<p>

Foreman's head was whirling like an old-style projector, the kind they used to play movies about nature on when he was a kid in grade school – the ones where the narration never quite matched up to the picture.

Foreman had been wary of Tritter from the start – he hated cops, having been harassed by them all through his youth, and not to mention he'd nearly died after his first and only time having a police officer as a patient. He'd hated the way Tritter's eyes seemed to size him up as something not quite human – not even as a racial thing, maybe he could have made more sense of that – but as a means to an end. A pawn in the chess game he was launching against House.

And Foreman had discovered over the years that he was far more like House than he'd ever cared to admit.

Or maybe even more like Tritter than he'd ever care to admit.

Was that where Foreman was headed, then – to spend his days playing games to settle phony vendettas and die alone with only a fairly disinterested relation to mourn for him? His relationship with Thirteen had fallen flat on its face, and his relationship with Wendy before it. He'd chosen House and his own ego before his love life and his family on more than one occasion.

Hadn't that been where he was headed when he'd been infected and quarantined, stabbing Cameron with a needle to force her to race against time on his behalf?

No – no it hadn't been.

Because unlike Tritter, Foreman's stubbornness went right through to the end – Foreman wouldn't ever give up so easily. Foreman would go kicking and screaming. At least he had that.

Like that was some consolation.

* * *

><p>"It's time to go home, House," Wilson said quietly, touching the diagnostician's shoulder yet again. His best friend's eyes had slipped shut, and Wilson knew that to not disturb him now meant all House would see painted on his eyelids would be the form of the detective, smirking and cocksure, then suffering and then reduced to the blood that they'd seen tracked in smudges in Tritter's room before someone had ushered them all away. "Let me take you home." House nodded but didn't open his eyes. He was only half-there, drifting in a way that Wilson hadn't seen him since the trial for his hit and run – or hit and limp, as House had sarcastically called it later – on Cuddy's house.<p>

"Candy's going home tomorrow," House murmured, his voice verging on sing-songy, almost shrill. "But what to?"


	17. Chapter 17

**Chapter Seventeen: December Dream**

A gust of frozen wind whipped past House's ears, and he turned in its direction, as if he could visualize it somehow. But it was gone in a flash and what he was faced with instead was Wilson's eyes, turned downward and not paying attention to the companions on either side of him. Below him was dark green grass, hardened into the ground, and House could tell without saying a word that he must have been thinking about Amber, about the time that he had done this before. Or Kutner. Had Wilson come to Kutner's funeral? He couldn't recall, or even recall if he had, himself.

"We are gathered here today," intoned a deep, unemotional voice. "To say goodbye to Detective Michael Tritter, a man who served his community as a police officer and his family as a son and a brother."

House's mind drifted off, disconnecting from what the man was saying. After all, they always said the same things at these things. He glanced over at Thirteen, who seemed to be paying attention, and Wilson, who still seemed to be trying to not pay attention at all. A little further up was Candy, standing on either side of a girl with long black hair and a younger girl with dirty-blonde hair. Candy was crying, leaning into the black-haired girl's shoulder and clutching her tightly.

House still wasn't entirely sure why he was here, but he was. Maybe it was a warning, to himself. How unlike Tritter was he really, when all was said and done? _And look now, what Tritter turned into. What he became. What became of him. _If Wilson was speaking to him instead of staring now, that's the lecture he'd give, the message he would pass on to him.

"Dr. House." A voice jerked him out of his thoughts, and he looked up to see a young African-American female, maybe in her late twenties, with short black hair and dressed in a black blouse and a long black-and-white skirt. "I have to say, I'm surprised to see you here." Seeing no recognition in his eyes, she continued. "We've never met, but I've heard a lot about you. I'm Detective Tritter's partner, Miranda Bennett." She extended her hand and shook House's, almost against his will.

"Oh," House replied. Wilson and Thirteen both stepped to either side of him, almost like some sort of a convoy.

"I'm Dr. Wilson, Dr. House's colleague, and this is Dr. Hadley. We were very sorry to… hear…" Wilson trailed off, swallowing hard and not mentioning that they hadn't simply heard but had been firsthand witnesses to Tritter's demise. After all, she had to know that – all of the gory details. There was no need to rehash, or even to allude.

"It's nice to meet you," Miranda told them. "Dr. Hadley, Detective Tritter mentioned you. He seemed to be very impressed with you." She smiled cheekily but each doctor could tell that it was a front.

"He did?" Thirteen asked in surprised.

"Yes," Miranda replied, "He texted me saying he'd met this amazing young doctor." She glanced at the surprise that must have spread across each face. "He didn't talk to many people," she began, "But he talked to me a little. Let me in a little. Everyone has to have at least one person they can be themselves around." She stuck her hands in her pockets and looked away for a moment. "Which isn't to say – I don't know, that I really knew him. I don't know if he was someone you could…" She trailed off, then stood up a little straighter with a start. "Wait, I need to be up there." She cut off what she was saying and made her way towards the small wooden stage that had been set up off to the far left of the field. Miranda stepped up on to the ledge and cleared her throat.

"You think they were an item?" House whispered to Wilson, who glared.

"Thank you all for coming out here today," Miranda began. "I see a lot of old faces… and a lot of new faces, too." There weren't very many faces at all; besides Miranda and Candy's group, there were a few other people who appeared to be dressed like police detectives and a small cluster of about four of five young women. "I first met Michael Tritter two years ago, when I transferred from the Camden Police Department to the Princeton Detective Bureau. I was assigned to be his partner." Miranda looked down, swallowing audibly, before continuing. "He taught me everything that I needed to know about being a cop. He taught me to never give up. He taught me… to always know what I was doing was right, or… to make sure that I knew what I was doing was right. He wasn't perfect. He was never perfect, but he was good. He didn't… there weren't a lot of people who he showed that side to, and I'm honored to have been one of them. Above all, Michael Tritter loved his family." Miranda pointed over to Candy and the other girls. "His nieces… Vanessa, Candace, and Hayley – they can attest to that. There's nothing he wouldn't do for them." She smiled sadly. "He will be deeply, deeply missed by all who knew him. I just wanted… to close by playing a song that was one of… my partner's favorites. This is 'December Dream', by Klaatu."

Miranda left the song to play as she exited the stage, approaching the group of women and smiling at them, exchanging a few words before glancing over at House with a look that mixed suspicion and gratitude.

She emerged at his side again.

"You know, I couldn't place where I knew those women from," she told House. "And then I did." She narrowed her eyes. "I used to be a vice cop, you know," she added simply before disappearing again.

"What was that all about?" Thirteen inquired.

"Nothing," House replied. "Nothing at all."

"You ordered hookers for Tritter's funeral," Thirteen continued. House didn't reply. "Why did you order hookers for Tritter's funeral?"

"I kind of figured the turnout would be low," House whispered back. "No need to thank me." Thirteen glared at him, and Wilson just shook his head.

After this followed a haze in which apparently some people spoke, and apparently some things happened, but none of the three could have recalled any of those things if they had been questioned on it. It was simply a fog. At some point they left to bring the coffin to the cemetery, and each person could lay an item, something that Tritter could, hypothetically, take with him on his journey across the river Styx or wherever he might be traversing.

Wilson and Thirteen left nothing, not even their thoughts.

House crouched down with a small packet in his hand, even as Wilson moved to stop him. He would have grabbed his friend's shoulder until he realized the item was a small pack of nicotine gum.

He managed to stop himself from admitting he thought it'd be a thermometer.

There was no discussion, no agreement, simply a motion after that – House limping forward first, followed by Wilson and trailed by Thirteen, and each climbed in tandem on House's motorcycle.

The diagnostician hit the gas and they thrust off into the distance, into somewhere, into anywhere but there.


	18. Chapter 18

Epilogue: Not Like This

House and Wilson ended up at Wilson's place; they both ended up on Wilson's couch. How they'd gotten there, they couldn't recall, the surprise (maybe shock, maybe not that strong) still hazing over every thought.

House considered that it was silly to get that bent out of shape over what had happened. After all, he hadn't even liked Tritter, had strongly disliked him in fact.

Then again, he'd strongly disliked his father, too, and he'd still felt… something. Something without a name.

Except this time it was as if he'd looked into a mirror and then dropped it, broke it.

Tritter was him; he was Tritter. If only it were that simple.

If only anything were.

Somehow they got from Wilson's couch to Wilson's refrigerator and pulled out some bottles of vodka. Somehow they began mixing shots, began talking about old times, and then it happened.

Somehow, it happened.

Wilson's lips brushed against House's, soft at first, then rough, like he was gaining confidence or maybe, just maybe, claiming ownership.

And House, to his surprise, let him.

Maybe he was tired of being like Tritter.

He wasn't going to become a Pollyanna, like Cameron – _and Cameron may not even be like Cameron anymore_, he reminded himself – but maybe there was something to living life a little less alone.

Maybe Wilson had been right all along.

Wilson reached up and touched House's cheek, pushing him gently against the couch as the two melted into each other.

The rest was all a blur, but a good blur, this time. This would be a day and night marked in blues and reds, in grays, in dismal fog and familiar yet novel comfort. There was something fitting about this end.

Through it, neither spoke, as if not to shatter the frame, the illusion.

When it was done, Wilson stood up and began to walk towards his room, miming a tipping of his hat as if they had just had yet another prank-off instead of a make-out session.

And maybe, House figured, that was the way it should be. Why make so much out of everything – maybe that had been the problem with Cuddy, the fact that she was at that part in her life where she wanted or needed permanence. Maybe it was okay to just want today to not be horrible.

Not perfect, maybe – circumstances had eliminated the possibility of "perfect" from House's life a long time ago. But "okay" was still on the table.

"Okay" was, well, okay. It was better than dead, brain splattered all over everywhere, with people talking about how they never actually knew you.

Not that House cared whether people knew him. Or even whether they respected him. It was enough to know himself, to live for himself. To stop chasing Cuddy and Stacy and whatever half-buried dreams he kept dangling in front of himself as a reason to be miserable.

_Someone can be miserable without help. It takes effort to be happy. _

It was a very un-House-like thought to have. It seemed like something that Wilson would say.

He should go talk to Wilson. Talking was what people were supposed to do after making out, right?

Except he couldn't get up the effort to get off the couch. _Well, there's always tomorrow. _

For him.

Not for Tritter, but for him.

Because life was too short to live trying to chase away the next day. _Might as well live. _

_I wonder if Wilson's up there, talking to Amber again. Maybe he's asking her to pass a message on to her new roommate up in the afterlife, if, after all that, there actually is such a thing._

_If there was, imagine the conversation. I wonder who would be worse off. _

House let his eyes drift closed. Had it all been in a week? Wilson's declaration, Tritter's re-emergence, his death, his odd relationship with Thirteen, this flood of memories of things he'd rather lock off – Amber and Kutner…

But despite it all, things were okay.

_Life's too short to focus on those things. _

He considered, again, walking up to Wilson's room. This time, it seemed like even more of a promising thought.

House kicked up his feet on the couch.

He had time to figure it out.

**The End**


End file.
